Chapter One

Gnaphalium

Life Everlasting

Bethan, Maine October 1987

The women resemble schoolgirls with gangly limbs, ruddy cheeks, plaited flaxen hair; they walk holding hands. Yet the older of the two is pregnant; her unborn baby rides high and round. And the younger woman’s left foot scratches a path through the leaves. She seems comfortable with her limp, accustomed to it.

A child darts before them, chasing leaves that swirl at her feet. Her dark hair, tied back in a scant tail, whips behind her. She stumbles, catches herself. “Mor!” she calls out. “Mommy!” Then she points at a bird perched high on a leafless branch, its plump breast berry-like against the low sky.

The older woman hesitates before she recalls the bird’s name. “A robin. The bird is a robin. Soon it will fly south for the winter. It is too cold here in Maine.”

“Men det er ikke koldt. But it is not cold.” The child’s words are malformed; she is not yet three.

“Ikke for Danmark,” the woman says. “Not for Denmark. And certainly not for you, but you are not a robin.”

The robin jerks its head to the side, then back, before it takes flight.

“The robin was looking at you,” the child says to the woman with the limp, not her mother. “He wanted to know your name.”

“I’m Moster Maren, little Sanne. Aunt Maren. Have you already forgotten?”

“Yes!” The child laughs and sprints forward; her laugh is discordant, but the wind carries the sound away, and the woman, Maren, is grateful.

“Sanne reminds me of you when you